LaTeX template for master theses at Politecnico di Milano.
In this section, you can find some tips that can help you in writing texts on LaTeX.
-
Put a tilde after a period that is not a full stop.
wrong: Dr. House is a...
correct: Dr.~Dolittle is a... -
Use
\emph{}
only the first time a new term is introduced, and never again. -
Avoid using
\vspace
in figures unless it's absolutely necessary. It usually messes with the space below the caption. -
Single quotation marks are produced in LaTeX using ` and '. Double quotation marks are produced by typing `` and ''. The undirected double quote character " produces double right quotation marks: it should never be used where left quotation marks are required (source).
-
Avoid defining your own chapters and sections styles. Stick to what the template uses.
-
Should you have to cite more than one reference at once, put them together inside the curly brackets.
wrong: \cite{foo}, \cite{bar}
correct: \cite{foo, bar} -
Always add a
~
after et al. and vs. to avoid extra spacewrong: as shown by Doe et al. \cite{foo}, the...
correct: as shown by Doe et al.~\cite{foo}, the... -
All
\ref
are preceded by a tilde.wrong: Figure\ref{fig:mae}
correct: Figure~\ref{fig:mae} -
The
\autoref
command provided by thehyperref
package (included in the template) let you refer to items by automatically adding the inferred prefix. The following examples produce the same output.correct: As shown in Figure~\ref{fig:mae}
correct: As shown in \autoref{fig:mae}
In this section, you can find some tips that can help you not to incur in common mistakes while writing in English.
-
Never use a hyphen after an adverb that ends in "ly"
wrong: widely-known paper
correct: widely known paper -
Numbers one to ten should be written as words, greater numbers as digits.
-
Write gender-neutral. Avoid using "he/she", use plural or they. If absolutely necessary, use only "she".
-
Never use citations in their own as nouns.
wrong: as [22] shows...
correct: as the work of Doe et al. [22] shows... -
Avoid using citations in the abstract. The abstract can be used on its own in different context (e.g., on the conference web page) so having a citation number there is pointless.
-
Do not forget the period at the end of the captions.
-
How to use i.e., e.g., vs., et al., and etc. Know what they mean (id est, exempli gratia, versus, et cetera, et alia). There is always a comma after e.g., and i.e., and they should not be ever used to begin a sentence. Always use a comma before etc.
-
Use "or" instead of "/".
-
Use a comma before the "and" when the "and" separates two full sentences.
wrong: I like apples and I adore pears.
correct: I like apples, and I adore pears. -
Never put a comma between subject and verb. In lists, use a comma before the last item, even if it starts with "and".
wrong: We will eat meat, vegetables and bread.
correct: We will eat meat, vegetables, and bread.wrong: I like apples, and pears.
correct: I like apples and pears. -
The sounds of the acronym/initialism determines the use of "a" or "an".
-
Do not define acronyms if they are not actually used anywhere else in the text.
-
Do not use abbreviations such as: don't, isn't, aren't, we're, etc. Instead, use the expanded version: do not, is not, are not, we are, etc.
-
Do not be too verbose.
bad: We did this experiment in order to show...
better: We did this experiment to show... -
"Section" and "Chapter" are uppercase if they refer to a specific section/chapter, with the relative number. If it is used in a generic fashion, then it is lower case. "In this section"/"In this chapter" senteces are always followed by a comma.
correct: In Section 4, we will show...
correct: In this section, we will show... -
Always make sure that it is absolutely clear what you are referring to when you use "which", "it", "these", etc. The reader will back-track in the sentence and match the pronoun to the closest noun.
-
Write in direct form, the passive form confuses the reader because it is not clear who performs the action.
bad: A model that outperforms the state of the art has been built.
better: We built a model that outperforms the state of the art. -
Write uniformly and make sure verbal tenses are consistent in periods/sections. It is convenient to stick to the present throughout all the thesis.
-
Avoid too many synonyms, as they confuse the reader.
- Grammarly: make your writing clear and engaging, eliminating grammar errors.
- Ludwig Guru: helps you understand if your English sentence is correct and makes sense in the academic context.
- Reverso Context: translate sentences in English according to the context relying on verified translation examples.
Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE
for more information.
Ivan Marisca - @marshka